Tag Archives: bates

I was a little bit “depressed” (not seriously, just a little de-motivated) as of late because I have been hovering at almost -4.00 vision (my far distance vision is not super pin-sharp with that level yet).

I’ve been asked on several occasions — by well-meaning people who know I’m on this natural vision improvement program — how my “eye exercises” are going.

The Bates Method is about re-learning healthy/natural eyesight habits, not eye exercises, so I have persevered in keeping the main principles in mind.

I remember reading in Thomas’s book (that’s based on Bates’ work) something about:

I didn’t really have a good understanding of what he was talking about. I understood what he meant “in theory,” but in actuality, my vision was so bad that the depth of field made no difference whatsoever! (with wearing glasses vs. not wearing glasses.)

Today I was wearing non-prescription sunglasses (I bought a whole bunch because of a clearance sale), so everything was quite blurry with my “around -4.00” vision.

But it was a sunny day. I noticed that my peripheral vision was stronger when I took the sunglasses off. When I put them back on again I made a note about this “peripheral vision” so that my eyes/brain registered it.

Imagine my shock/surprise when I started seeing what the whole “depth of field” thing was about (!!!). Without my glasses, things are fuzzy to an extent — but I could see the form/outline of objects (plants, books on shelves, whatever), in a 3-dimensional way. When I put my glasses back on, things are sharper, but that 3-dimensional DEPTH OF FIELD is compromised (things become more 2-dimensional instead).

DAMN! That’s just the kind of motivation I need to continue on this natural vision improvement program :)

The thing I realised about four years ago is that glasses don’t really solve the problem of looking at different depths and distances. Your eyes are forced to adjust to using the maximum strength lens at all distances.That’s why I started wearing weaker glasses most of the day. Besides being more comfortable, I thought it might slow down the rate of deterioration But, thinking about it, if eyes can adjust by getting worse, why not adjust by getting better?

I noticed this when I was around 16 years old too — that the higher-powered glasses weren’t exactly making my eyesight better (in fact, they were making my eyesight worse).

As my eyes became used to the higher-powered prescription for far distance, the higher-powered lenses were too strong for close range. I didn’t have weaker lenses at the time for close range work (and I couldn’t see further than a couple of inches in front of my face without glasses). So it just got steadily worse until mid-2008 when I sought a way to improve my (deteriorating) eyesight by natural means.